What do we really know about the Earth’s interior? And how trustworthy is
our knowledge of it? Many people (mistakenly) think that the lava which
pours out of volcanoes comes from a large reservoir of molten material which
makes up the greater part of the Earth. Scientists have discovered that
lava
comes from within the Earth’s crust. The lava comes from approximately
20
miles down. The existence of lava does not affect the passage of earthquake
(seismic) waves. This indicates to scientists that the crust is largely
solid. So where does the heat come from which melts the rock locally?
Scientists have advanced two theories.

Some say that the melting is due to
high concentrations of radioactive elements in a particular area. These
decaying radioactive elements generate enough heat to melt rock. Much lava
is slightly radioactive and that lends support to this theory.

Other
geologists have argued that shearing and faulting are adequate heat
generating mechanisms.

The evidence supports both theories. Lava cannot
possibly be rising from the centre of the Earth as some may be tempted to
think. It would cool down and become solid on its long, slow journey
upwards. Lava is therefore a surface phenomenon and does not in any way
reflect what the Earth is like 50 or 100 or more miles down.

The Earth’s temperature is relatively constant. Where does this heat come
from? Most scientists believe it comes from decaying radioactive materials
deep inside the Earth. The Earth does not seem to be cooling down any
further and this should alert us to the fact that the Earth is simply not a
ball of molten material which is slowly cooling down and solidifying – as
many people believe.

Since the temperatures seem to rise steadily as one goes deeper and deeper,
scientists have extrapolated the temperatures and attempted to estimate the
temperature of the Earth hundreds of miles beneath the surface. One has to
ask oneself whether this extrapolation of temperatures is really logically
justified. The extremely deep mines are still nothing but a pin-prick into
the surface of the Earth. The centre of the Earth lies some
3,963 miles
away. A mine 6 miles deep really does not represent a valid statistical
portion of the Earth. No one has discovered a way of determining the
temperature deep down. Our best estimates are that lava comes from 20-30
miles down. But what will temperatures be like 100 or 1000 miles down? It’s
all guesswork – most of it derived indirectly from Newtonian gravity.

The only “reliable” method we have of knowing what goes on in the
Earth
beneath our feet comes from the science of Seismology. However, there are
many examples of actual findings being different from what was predicted.
The science of seismology contains two very broad assumptions which no one
has ever been able to verify:

1. The speed of seismic waves beneath the
Earth is ultimately inferred from our understanding of the structure of the
Earth based on Newtonian Gravity. We have no way of being certain that these
waves really are reaching these depths or traveling at these speeds.

2. We
cannot be sure that speed changes are due to the changing constitution of
the Earth. Our view of the inner Earth might be very skewed.

Since most of
our knowledge of the Earth is obtained from those searching for gold,
minerals and oil, one can’t help wondering if this skews our view of what
the inner Earth may be like. We only search for these minerals in specific
regions and this may be misleading us further. These holes seem to prove
that much of the predicted structure changes have never turned out to be
real. If we find such errors at depths of just a few kilometers, how much
less can we trust our ideas when dealing with rock which is hundreds and
perhaps thousands of miles beneath the surface?

The Earth is a flattened sphere. This is due to the rotation of the
Earth,
and the Earth being somewhat plastic. One would therefore expect the inside
of the Earth to be similarly shaped. Yet there is some evidence that the
Inner core may be shaped like a rugby ball. Instead of being flattened, it
may be pointed at the top and bottom. The claim that the inner core is
actually prolate in shape is by no means universally accepted. Even less
certain than the claims of a prolate core are those for inner-core
heterogeneity and, even more remarkably, hexagonal symmetry. These
conflicting results in recent times, and the disputes surrounding them make
one wonder just how reliable seismology is at those depths.

Slow EarthquakesEarthquakes are caused when stresses build up and the rock then gives way
catastrophically. And earthquake is an explosive event. It therefore cam as
a surprise that there are some earthquakes which have unusually long source
duration. The seismologists Professor Thorne Lay and Terry Wallace write:

“the mechanism for the slow rupture process is unknown, but in the extreme
it could produce a ‘silent’ earthquake devoid of short-period body and
surface waves.”

They go on to mention that G. Beroza and T. Jordan surmise
the existence of “slow earthquakes": which are virtually undetectable – and
that several of these may be occurring each year. These slow earthquakes
suggest to me that the Earth might not be as tightly packed in some areas as
we presume. Are there enormous cavities inside the Earth, perhaps caused by
erosion and other forces deep, deep down? What would happen if these
cavities were to be crushed? Could the forces down there be operating a lot
more slowly and weakly? Could horizontal or vertical forces be operating as
well? What if “slow” events prevent us from ascertaining the stranger
aspects of deep seismology? Even more mysteriously, could “silent” quakes be
occurring which our instruments are incapable of measuring? Could events be
occurring down there which are not violent enough to be detected and we
therefore have an inaccurate impression of what really is happening down
there?

Deep Focus Quakes

Among the strongest evidence that the Earth is rigid all the way down to the
“outer core” (where a hollow cavity exists?) comes by way of deep-focus
earthquakes. Thousands of deep-focus earthquakes, making up to 22% of all
earthquakes, have been recorded. Theoretically earthquakes cannot occur
below 70 kilometers because the temperatures and pressures there are such
that rock will flow rather than break catastrophically. The mechanism for
ordinary quakes cannot therefore exist below 70 kilometers because the
stresses are always relieved. Scientists hope that a suitable explanation
for deep-focus quakes will be found without bending the laws of physics and
chemistry, but that might not be possible. Professor Lay et al., writes:

“Deep earthquakes have long posed a problem for seismologists. Laboratory
experiments indicate that the pressures at a few hundred kilometers depth
should prohibit brittle fracture and frictional sliding processes. Yet
earthquakes as large as (magnitude) 8.2 have occurred at 650 km. The
deep seismicity has many characteristics that are similar to those of
shallow
earthquakes. Most important, the deep earthquakes have radiation patterns
consistent with double couples, which implies shear faulting.”

(Several other observations which defy accepted scientific theory are given
by the author along with attempts to explain them.) The search for deep
focus quake mechanisms therefore seems to be far from over. The problem may
be more fundamental than scientists have appreciated so far.

Let us now consider deep focus quakes within the Hollow Earth paradigm. The
key to understanding it might lie in combining some simple concepts:

(a) A
rigid hollow shell

(b) The different
behavior of gravity deep beneath the
Earth’s surface

If gravity varies inside the Earth, then pressure and temperature would not
increase as science expects. It therefore follows that the Earth down there
would be cooler and more brittle than theory currently allows for and that
shear can indeed occur. It also follows that G will indeed be very different
to what is currently expected at various depths. There is no reason why some
of the rock might even be in a state of almost weightlessness. Density need
not keep on increasing with depth. Nor would there be any reason to expect
pressure to close all cavities. At these cooler temperatures we could expect
water to flow and to erode deep into the Earth. This water could be one of
multiple causes of deep quakes. What about dynamic gravity as a possible
source of deep seismicity? What if varying electric currents inside the
Earth cause gravity to increase and decrease at various times at various
depths? Could this be cause of the random three dimensional distribution of
after shocks which has been observed?

Hollow Planet Structure

The solidEarth, conceptually, is made up of three parts. Imagine three
spheres, one within each other.

The outer sphere is the
Mantle. This region
is relatively solid. In it is molten material under great pressure.

Within
it lies the Outer Core. The Outer Core is a liquid.

Within the Outer Core
lies the Inner Core which is again solid. The Inner Core lies right at the
centre of the Earth.

The author presents a technical analysis of seismic waves with several
figures illustrating how waves are supposedly reflected within the Earth. He
then presents his theory of seismic wave action in a Hollow Earth and says:
In doing my own analysis and thinking about Hollow Planets, there was only
one Hollow Planet model which could give the same results as the current
scientific models. It seemed logical to me that if there was a hollow crust
that somewhere in the middle, perhaps more towards the inner side, there
would be an area of maximum density. The density of the crust would increase
from the outer surface of the Earth to this point of maximum density. From
there the density would decrease toward the inner surface of the Earth. This
very simple model exhibits all the characteristics which we have learned
from a century of global seismology. The P (primary) and S (secondary) waves
which emanate from the epicenter of an earthquake descend into the
Earth.
Those which strike the hollow cavity’s surface will be refracted back to the
surface of the Earth exactly in accordance with what we saw in Figure 3.9
(from “Modern Global Seismology”).

But what really interests us is the “shadow zone”.

(In a nutshell, one can
characterize the general behavior of seismic waves as follows:

1. At a
distance of between 7,000 miles to 10,000 miles from the epicenter of an
earthquake, one finds a “shadow zone”. In this shadow zone there are very
few P waves.

2. Beyond the 10,000 mile mark, there is a concentration of
P waves and
virtually no S waves. What S waves there are, are those which are thought to
possibly have passed through the core. But this is open to dispute and most
scientists think there are no S waves in this region.)

The shadow zone is
now easily explained. The shadow zone is caused by the belt of maximum
density in the Earth’s crust. Suppose we go down into the Earth at the
epicenter. As we go deeper, the density gradually increases. It reaches a
maximum at point M1. But from M1 downwards, the density decreases again
until we strike the hollow cavity. Thus P waves which penetrate beyond the
belt of maximum density will find themselves refracted and bent and bent
downwards – so that they then travel and curve along the inside of the
Hollow Planet. These waves will continue to travel like this until they
again manage to penetrate and escape through the belt of maximum density.
The shadow zone is thus caused by the change in density in this
M-belt which
naturally separates the P waves. It also explains why there are some
P waves
in the shadow region. All that is happening is that the waves are being bent
around the Earth and being refocused on the other side.

It can be seen that the waves which are thought to be penetrating both the
Outer and Inner cores may be doing nothing of the kind. These waves would
simply be those which are caught by the decreasing density and bent around
the hollow cavity. Note that since density decreases with depth beyond point
M1, that any refraction which takes place is inwards – hugging the contours
of the Inner Earth. The rest of the seismic waves bounce between the
Inner
and Outer surfaces as they make their progress around the
Earth.

Once one is freed from Newtonian gravity, and one merely studies the seismic
waves alone – not sure what path they are taking – the study of the
Inner
Earth becomes extremely complex and filled with all manner of unknowns. Have
scientists already discovered the hollow cavity inside the Earth – in the
form of the Outer liquid core? I think so. The fact that S waves don’t pass
through it, and that the P wave speeds are abnormally slow makes me think
that this “liquid” core is really the cavity which scientists deny the
existence of . After going through this exercise I find myself wondering
even more if perhaps seismologists are studying a Hollow Planet without ever
having realized it was so. What do you think?